"If you’ve read any of his other novels starring the rogue East Long Beach private investigator Isaiah Quintabe, known as 'IQ,' you know that Ide doesn’t write conventional suspense stories....In its own idiosyncratic fashion, Smoke is superb." —Washington Post

"Mr. Ide, always a generous plotter, weaves several storylines into this kaleidoscopic chronicle….Dozens of other wonderfully sketched minor characters—science-fair whiz kids, pimps and prostitutes, working-class heroes, vengeance-bent relatives, sorrowful junkies and idealistic strivers—flesh out this richly imagined and sharply written saga. Smoke, which concludes with a cliffhanging crisis, positively demands a follow-up, and fast.” —Wall Street Journal

"Ide has displayed a rare ability to mix dark comedy and gut-churning drama…mixmaster Ide's compulsion to blend light and dark (Isaiah's confrontation with the serial killers, while gruesome, takes the form of "a slapstick movie shot in a burning insane asylum") affects the two plots in surprising ways, again producing an emotion-rich form of character-driven tragicomedy, but one in which peril forever loiters in the shallows.” —Booklist